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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29542089">How to wield hearts</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myulalie/pseuds/Myulalie'>Myulalie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Hanahaki Disease, Hopeful Ending, Introspection, M/M, Past Magnus Bane/Camille Belcourt, Self-Worth Issues, Song Lyrics, Soulmates</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:26:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,337</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29542089</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myulalie/pseuds/Myulalie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When you fall in love with someone else than your soulmate, you get sick with the hanahaki disease.</p><p>Magnus meets Camille Belcourt first and falls in love with her, but she’s not his soulmate. In order to survive, he gets the stems surgically removed from his chest, thus losing the ability to <i>feel</i> love and <i>express</i> it. </p><p>When Magnus meets his soulmate, he can’t love Alec the way he thinks is “right”. </p><p>A character study, and a tale about caring for someone.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>77</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>SHBingo 20-21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>How to wield hearts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thanks to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceOnIce/pseuds/AceOnIce">AceOnIce</a> for beta-reading!</p><p><b>Bingo square:</b> Soulmate AU</p><blockquote>
  <p>I recently listened to Tom Odell's 'Another Love' again and it kinda made me think of Magnus</p>
</blockquote>I received this prompt of tumblr and... this happened. You can listen to the song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwpMEbgC7DA">here</a>.<p>You can tweet me at <b>#myulalie!</b></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><i>I wanna take you somewhere so you know I care</i><br/>
Magnus wears his heart on his sleeve, a weak pulse hidden in frilly fabric. It’s not like he has anything to lose anymore. It doesn’t matter, not that Alec cares anyway. Magnus left his aching heart in the eighteenth century and there is no breezing through the years to get it back. He wouldn’t walk in his past self’s steps anyway, because Magnus so desperately wishes he had kept his heart someplace safe, in Alec’s calloused hands perhaps. Shadowhunters know how to wield hearts, their most precious possession, the only weapon they possess and that could turn against them.</p><p><i>But it's so cold and I don't know where</i><br/>
Magnus’ withered heart remains somewhere in his chest, dark and frozen in the winter night that saw it break. It drifts away in a sea of regrets, and sharp memories like shards stab at the emptiness, as if Magnus would ever forget. There is nothing more consuming than absence, and Magnus desperately looks into himself for a sliver of golden light, even a tinge of that love he used to carry. He finds nothing, but the inkling that Alec should have been <i>it</i>.</p><p><i>I brought you daffodils in a pretty string</i><br/>
It came in gold nuggets, flower petals he drowns in once again. Magnus never knew what to make of the daffodils, spent too long admiring them, longing and wistful. An immortal’s life is long indeed, and he didn’t believe he’d live to meet his soulmate. Now that he’s come face to face with Alec, he cannot believe he pulled the daffodils out centuries ago. He weaved the stems into flower crowns and gifted them to his lover, and now Magnus has nothing to show, can only hope that Alec believes him when he says he cares. He wants to, so much.</p><p><i>But they won't flower like they did last spring</i><br/>
The flowers don’t bloom. Magnus’ spring has come and gone, like his first love, and he can’t be <i>it</i> for Alec. He would turn lead into gold for Alec, but Magnus’ gold is splattered with blood,  ancient, and ever so cold. He hides shirt sleeves splattered with blood like skeletons, and fears the lie shows in the distant shine of jewelry. For all his glitter, Magnus is nothing but the shadow of gold now. Magnus is not <i>it</i>.</p><p><i>And I wanna kiss you, make you feel alright</i><br/>
Magnus yearns to be. He craves the taste of Alec’s lips and wishes he could breathe the shadowhunter in and soak up the light that shines through the cracks of Alec’s armor. Alec is hurting too, Magnus knows, and the shadowhunter feels like a tin soldier, setting himself on fire to keep Magnus warm. Magnus burns out for him too, yet there is nothing for Alec to find, but his petals torn loose, drained of life.</p><p><i>I'm just so tired to share my nights</i><br/>
Magnus spends countless nights in the company of misery, a restless presence he hates, but prefers to loneliness. He deserves it. He was greedy, and now that his soulmate comes along, there is nothing to share but grief. Magnus resents himself for his mistakes. Alec’s pain is his own, and Magnus almost regrets Alec didn’t fall in love with someone else, because he could remove the stems too then, and lose the ability to love Magnus altogether. Magnus doesn’t deserve Alec’s love anyway, and he wants to spare Alec the pain, but the shadowhunter is determined to love Magnus, to love enough for the two of them.</p><p><i>I wanna cry and I wanna love</i><br/>
Magnus doesn’t feel anything, and he wants nothing more than to cry, and to love Alec. How fortunate would Magnus have been, too. Alec brings him in relentlessly and embraces him in a silver glow, the moon watching over him at night. Magnus wants the passion and the aggravation, but he can’t even hate himself anymore, because it’s so close to love.</p><p><i>But all my tears have been used up</i><br/>
He has no tears left to cry. Magnus had plenty enough time to mourn, and there is nothing to grieve either when you lose the ability to feel such things. Sometimes he dreams that his tears would bring the flowers back to life, and they’ll rise and bloom, to love Alec just this once. What a privilege it would have been, to love the shadowhunter, yet Magnus can’t even shed a tear for him.</p><p><i>On another love, another love</i><br/>
He loved Camille, once. He loved her again and again, until he suffocated on the daffodils, and the stems had to be surgically removed. Alec won’t even love somebody else to spare himself the pain of a partner like Magnus, loveless and unfaithful, because he couldn’t wait another year, even less another decade, to meet his soulmate. Magnus couldn’t wait, but he couldn’t even die either. He has always wanted to live, but what’s life when all he can feel is <i>loss</i>?</p><p><i>And if somebody hurts you, I wanna fight</i><br/>
Magnus’ ire takes over when Alec is hurt, and sometimes he hopes that it’s enough. Alec must feel it, Alec must <i>understand</i> that there is so much Magnus feels, except for love. Yet, Alec is hurting because of him, burns himself on the magnitude of Magnus’ repressed feelings. Magnus’ will to fight flickers and dies then, because it feels like he’s lashing out at the wrong person. What is there to fight but himself anyway?</p><p><i>But my hand's been broken, one too many times</i><br/>
Alec bites the hands that feed him and struggles so ruthlessly against people that it shoves them back to the depth of an ocean of feelings, resentment left untold. It also breaks what’s left of Magnus’ withered heart. He goes under, and can’t come up to breathe. How can Magnus prove that he cares, when he can barely swim?</p><p><i>So I'll use my voice, I'll be so fucking rude</i><br/>
He speaks instead, and he speaks out of turn to let Alec know how he feels. If Magnus can’t convince Alec, then maybe he can push the shadowhunter away. Alec doesn’t deserve the pain, and Magnus has no qualms about sparing Alec if he can’t feel anything, can’t love Alec properly. </p><p><i>Words they always win, but I know I'll lose</i><br/>
Actions speak louder than words, and Alec sees through Magnus’ ruse. Alec only heeds Magnus’ words when he speaks of fondness, or caring so much it hurts. Magnus’ broken promises and whispered pleas bring Alec closer than ever when night recedes and gives way to the first lights of dawn. Magnus blames himself for failing Alec yet again, and the night falls again.</p><p><i>And I'd sing a song, that'd be just ours</i><br/>
He longs to give his withered heart to Alec. Magnus yearns for it so much, but what is there to give? Still life, and so little to share but specks of dust and crumbling leaves, the layers of the man Magnus used to be. Magnus gave up on his heart long ago, when it brought flowers to the wrong person and choked on petals like golden chips. He can’t even say the words to his soulmate now. Alec feels like everything that could have been, but Magnus feels nothing.</p><p><i>But I sang 'em all to another heart</i><br/>
Magnus thought he could make his heart sing another name, Camille’s. It was another time, and another love, not the right kind of love, nor the right kind of person. Magnus’ heart can’t sing anymore. There is nothing but silence, and Magnus’ thoughts, rushing to his lips to flow in a never ending stream of repressed feelings. Alec listens, patient, and reads everything left unsaid, that flickers on Magnus’ face and echoes in everything Magnus does. Alec understands then, and Alec believes in the meaning of his silence. There is nothing to be said.</p><p><i>And I wanna cry, I wanna learn to love</i><br/>
Magnus learns that caring feels a lot like loving.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p><b>I take prompts!</b> Follow me <a href="https://myulalie.tumblr.com/post/637141364802469888/string-of-pearls-and-prompts">on tumblr</a> and get in touch, my ask box is open ♥</p><p><b>On feedback:</b><br/>“&lt;3” as extra kudos are fine by me. Short comments give me just as much of an adrenaline rush as longer comments because my email notifications don’t discriminate! I give as long as I get (*coughs* read: I reply at length) so you decide if we’re having a quickie in the comments or if you’re taking me out on a date to have an actual conversation ;)</p><p><i>Constructive criticism is welcome</i>. Please bear in mind that while I will take it into account, I will not rewrite a story that has already been published. I’d rather incorporate relevant feedback (read: concrete examples and suggestions as to how to address the element in question) into a new work and write a different take on the same plot! Once again, I give as good as I get ;)</p><p><i>You are not, by any means, required to comment if you don’t want to</i>. I will publish every chapter of a complete story no matter the response to it. Find some more thoughts and tips on commenting <a href="https://myulalie.tumblr.com/tagged/commenting">on my tumblr</a>, I make moodboards for my fics too, if you want to follow me :D Happy reading ♥</p></blockquote></div></div>
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